CHAPTER 30
That evening, after a delicious dinner of turbot of lobster with peas and asparagus and a savory roast saddle of mutton, Cook delivered up a chocolate cream for dessert to make the angels sing.
It was still light outside, so the draperies in the drawing room weren’t pulled, and several windows were open to the sweet night air.
Hallie poured her father tea, added a dollop of cream, just as he liked it, and handed it to him. She could still smell Jason on her skin. How was that possible, since she’d bathed before dinner? Her hand trembled. She couldn’t think about Jason, at least not now. Her father was telling an amusing story, she had to pay attention. She said, “So what did Genny do to this Mr. Pauley?”
Alec laughed. “I believe she asked him if he played the piano, which he did, of course—she’d found that out before she asked the question. She then patted his hand and told him despite the fact that playing the piano, just like painting watercolors or sewing samplers, was a distinctly female pursuit, she still believed he looked manly enough, well, perhaps not quite as manly as he could if he eschewed the piano keys, for say, billiards and cheroots. He looked at me, studied himself for a moment in the mirror, coughed, then asked her very politely to design his yacht.”
Jason, who knew Genny Carrick, Lady Sherard, nodded when Hallie said, “I never saw her back down from a fight. And she’s so smooth. I still get so mad I want to spit nails in a man’s face when he tells me I’m too pretty to be out in the mud.”
Alec said, “Genny was the same as you at one time. However, since she married me, she’s learned to deal with businessmen with far more finesse.”
“That’s because if she could deal with you she could deal with the devil himself.”
Alec laughed and toasted her with his teacup.
Angela said to Jason, “Baroness Sherard taught Hallie to stand firm when the ground was firm enough to stand upon, otherwise, she was to step back quickly.”
Alec Carrick looked at his watch, looked at his daughter, and rose. “I believe Jason and I will have a short conversation. If you ladies will excuse us.”
Hallie jumped to her feet. “Oh no, Papa, don’t you dare take him outside and shoot him or break his head. He didn’t do anything. It was all me. I attacked him. I nearly knocked him over I wanted to get to him so quickly. You cannot blame him, it isn’t fair.”
“I cannot very well call my daughter a blockhead and knock her in the jaw, now can I?”
“You’ve called me a blockhead many times.”
Alec Carrick sighed. “I forgot.”
“Listen, Papa, he was helpless, he was polite, there was nothing he could do except maybe kick me away. Besides, all the stable lads were out with the horses. Angela won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Certainly not, my dear, but you know these things have a way of oozing out of cracks in the walls.”
“No,” Hallie said. “No, it’s not possible.”
“Hallie, go to bed,” Jason said. “Sir, it’s quite a lovely night. Would you like to see Piccola prance around the paddock? It is one of her favorite pastimes.”
“Prancing on a moonlit night?”
Hallie said, “She refuses to p
rance if the sky isn’t clear. I don’t want to go to bed. I want to speak to my father, set his mind on the right road, assure him that if anyone did happen to see anything at all, I would bury him under the willow tree.”
Alec Carrick walked to his daughter, clamped his hand over her mouth, and said quietly into her ear, “There will be no bodies buried anywhere. You will not open your mouth again. You will go upstairs and you will stay there.”
Angela took Hallie’s arm. “It’s one of those times when the ground isn’t firm enough to stand on, my dear. Come along.”
Five minutes later, Alec Carrick was smoking a cheroot and thinking about this very odd day. He said as he watched the smoke curl up into the clear night sky, “My daughter is one of the most self-contained individuals I have ever known. Even when she was small, she looked at those around her with a dispassionate eye. However, she was not at all dispassionate today in the stables.”
Jason had never seen her dispassionate, indeed, did not recognize this woman her father spoke of. Hallie, dispassionate? Never. He said, “It is true, sir, what I told you. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I would not dishonor your daughter.”
“No, the shock on your face, the desperation, was as stark as the white moon. The initial letters my daughter wrote to her mother and me after the both of you wanted Lyon’s Gate—she was quite ready to tear your head from your body. When she wrote of your male beauty, I could picture the sneer on her face. What do you think of my daughter, Jason?”
“She has more guts than brains.”
Baron Sherard nodded, remained silent.
“This is something that shouldn’t have happened, my lord. I never wish to wed, you see.”